High-speed signal monitoring is an important function, but may present a difficult problem in electronic systems and related applications. For example, the analog nature and high frequency bandwidth associated with signal monitoring functions generally makes this area of design extremely challenging. Thus, typically it is discovered that even simple signal monitoring algorithms are difficult to implement in a practical manner.
Signal monitoring functions generally would be of significant value to system users in various types of applications (e.g., equipment manufacturing, configuration optimization, performance monitoring, and trouble-shooting). However, conventional techniques to perform signal monitoring may involve specialized laboratory instrumentation and probing setups to provide a one-time measurement of received data signal integrity levels. These conventional techniques are typically only performed during the equipment development phase and are generally expensive and time consuming. An additional drawback is that the external instrument probing of high frequency circuits often introduces signal distortion and adds noise to the measurement. As a result, there is a need for improved signal monitoring techniques.